Page 60 of How Sweet It Is

“That sounds exhausting.”

My eyebrows lift. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. Still is, some days.”

She swirls her root beer. “My sister was a genius. Or at least, that’s what everyone said. Valedictorian. Full-ride scholarship. President of this, captain of that. You name it. Plus, she was tall and gorgeous. Everyone commented on her beauty and talent. I was just... the other one.”

I lean in. “The other one?”

She nods. “No matter what I did, it was never quite enough. My parents would smile and say, ‘That’s nice, Claire, but did you hear what Natalie did this week?’ She cured boredom. She savedthe whales. She got another presidential award. Meanwhile, I was working my butt off trying to get someone to notice me.”

The hair on my neck rises. “Claire?” I ask.

Her face pales. “I mean Amelia.” She forces a laugh. “I must be really tired. That was just a stupid nickname from long ago.”

I stare at her, my heart sinking. She’s lying. What’s going on? Is her name really Claire? Who is she hiding from, and what did they do to her?

She looks down at her fingernails, picking at her cuticles. “Have you ever felt like if you vanished, people would just... keep moving like you weren’t even there?”

“Yeah,” I say, dropping the whole Claire thing. She’s talking to me, and I can tell she’s being real with me. I’ll take what I can get. “All the time.”

We sit in that quiet for a beat too long. The buzz of conversation around us fades into background static. She looks up at me, something raw in her eyes.

“I felt that way every day growing up,” she says quietly.

My throat tightens. I reach across the table and place my hand over hers. She doesn’t pull away. My skin comes alive at the contact with her. It zips through me like an energy force.

“I see you,” I say.

Her smile trembles. “I know you do.”

We don’t say anything for a while, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe silence isn’t so scary when someone else is holding it with you.

She finally picks up another peanut, cracks it open, and this time, tosses the shell onto the floor.

I pull my hands back and give her a slow clap. “Look at you, letting your hair down. Getting messy.”

She laughs, and the sound hits me right in the chest. Warm and clear and real.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” she says.

“If you like this, you’ll love where we’re going next.”

Her eyes snap to mine. “Next? I thought you’d want to go home early. You look like you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I didn’t, but that’s okay. I want to see you getreallymessy.”

CHAPTER 29

CLAIRE MATTHEWS — SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

My pulse jumps. Really messy? What is he thinking? “Not mud wrestling,” I blurt out.

Levi tosses his head back and laughs, and it echoes around the bar. “I would pay a lot of money to see you mud wrestle, but sadly, I don’t know of any places around here where they do that.”

Relief floods me. “Good.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a perfectly acceptable activity to do on a not-date.”

“All right.”

---